How much narration should e-learning contain? Lessons learned.

How Much Narration in eLearning? Our Lessons Learned by Don Bair & Mike Dickinson : Learning Solutions Magazine

Whether to narrate eLearning content, how much to narrate, and choosing the person or "voice" to narrate are among questions that come up constantly for eLearning designers. Unfortunately, the research and the guidance from experts is not necessarily consistent or easy to apply. Here is what one team learned from their own study of the questions, and the guidelines they adopted.

Of course, others argue that narration does add to the learning experience.  This article on the Making Change blog once again argues against overuse of narration, but the comments below it are almost more interesting. 

For instance:

I think, that if we want to be learner centric, the choice must be left to the learner as to wheather they will listen or read to a presentation. For auditory learners, narration will do more good than a page turner. On the other side, visual learners might prefer reading the explanations. You must also provide some sort of interaction for kinestaetics learners.

Now I'll throw another idea about narration out for consideration.  In our company, we want to keep costs down, keep our elearning editable, and not end up with the voice of someone who no longer works here on a module that would have to be completely re-recorded if changes are made.  So, if we use narration, we are just considering . . . robotics voices.  (Don't hit me, please)

Anyway, see what you think.  Check out NeoSpeech.

What do you think?